ETA: I will be visiting NYC this summer for my sister’s big fat gay wedding, and even though I’ll be hideously pressed for time throughout my trip, I’m going to try to find time to swing by a cemetery in the Bronx to leave flowers for La Lupe. Always been a big fan.

One of the Special Forces guys shakes hands using his left hand – WTF?

Also, they waited until they were right next to the helicopter before they patted Bergdahl down for explosives. That seems like a pretty basic error. Surely if you suspect he has explosives you keep him well away from your only means of escape to check?

TNC jumped on the twitters for a while and patiently educated “history buffs” like Aaron Worthing who predictably wanted to know how the mechanics of reparations would work and not discuss the underlying causes. Assist to Dr. Levenson. Good times.

The archbishop of Tuam and the head of the Irish Bon Secours sisters will soon meet to discuss the memorial and service planned at the site. The Bon Secours sisters have donated what the Irish TV station RTÉ describes as “a small sum” to the children’s graveyard committee.

Father Fintan Monaghan, secretary of the Tuam archediocese, says: “I suppose we can’t really judge the past from our point of view, from our lens. All we can do is mark it appropriately and make sure there is a suitable place here where people can come and remember the babies that died.”

Because that’s what missing, a quick highly symbolic memorial to the credo of the institutional perpetrators / enablers of the deaths! And let’s not judge the past by our standards says the guy flogging supposedly 2,000 year old revelations of truths for all times. Whose celibate boss is finger-wagging behind him about pets selfish, babies a necessary ingredient for a fulfilled non-lonely married life.

CBC to spread links around, and this one might be getting some on-site, not just reported elsewhere evidence later on. Has some overlays now.

@gogol’s wife: Thanks! Except for the showdown with she who must not be named and the relentless heat, I had a good time. The best part was eating the Haapus (Alphonso) mangoes which are available only in late April and May.

@Betty Cracker: It is, but we will barely make a dent. A friend is being ordained on Sunday in UU ministry, and we’re attending (partner is speaking in the ceremony even).
I don’t think our friend realized she’d picked the Country Music Awards blowout concert weekend. We’re at a Hampton Inn about 30 miles from nothing to avoid paying $250-300 a night. YeeeeeeHaww.

@gogol’s wife: I used to comment on the late night threads because of the time difference between India and the US, when I was in India.
My godbothering MIL wanted me to perform some religious rituals. I was going to agree but stopped short when she blamed me for all the ills that have befallen her family because I did not perform some rituals she wanted and defended my thesis instead, many moons ago. Conveniently, she had scheduled the ritual so it clashed with my thesis defense.

P.S. The version of Hinduism she practices is closer to the harsh Puritanical version of Christianity than the feel good touchy feely new agey version popular here.

@gogol’s wife: I used to comment on the late night threads because of the time difference between India and the US, when I was in India.
My godbothering MIL wanted me to perform some religious rituals. I was going to agree but stopped short when she blamed me for all the ills that have befallen her family because I did not perform some rituals she wanted and defended my thesis instead, many moons ago. Conveniently, she had scheduled the ritual so it clashed with my thesis defense.

I also don’t understand much Tamil, so I would have no idea about what I was actually doing. So I told her that we should wait when I came back to India with my husband and then we would all sit together and decide what rituals to perform and so on.
P.S. The version of Hinduism she practices is closer to the harsh Puritanical version of Christianity than the feel good touchy feely new agey version popular here.

I know I’m already a veritable font of negativity, pessimism, and cynicism these days, but when I see shit like this, with every indication that it’s meant to be a legit product and not some elaborate Onion hoax, then I lose just a little more of my will to give a shit about anything anymore.

Fucking bulletproof blankets for kids. As a solution for school shootings. The fuck is wrong with this fucking country.

Fuck the GOP and their evil minions. Bergdahl may face serious issues with the Army. But he’s home dammit, and his parents and all the supporters who stood by him for 5 years have all been shat upon by egotistical maniacs in the Republican movement.

For anyone who wants a definition or example of patriotism, look at the Native Americans (or AAs or Japanese) who have become members of the armed services and served with distinction. With all that their tribes and people have endured, they still joined up to protect and defend their homes and communities.

I can’t cut and paste the tweets, but this Gawker post on ‘wingers who were saying OBama abandoned Burghdal and now want them both tried for treason contains at least one famous name, if this is The Charlie Daniels (for you younglings, a once hippie-ish country singer who had some crossover successes in the Southern Rock moment of the late seventies, early eighties, found Jeebus and is now a hard core right-winger and IIRC Birther)

“Well, number one is, how dare we as a community support someone who in their mind they’re thinking of as a ‘deserter,’ a traitor. That they had plans to come here on their vacation, they’re no longer coming, they’re cancelling their reservations.”

“I just find that shocking,” [Jane Drussel, the president of the Hailey Chamber of Commerce] said. “You know, we’re Americans, and we need to act like Americans, and to me that’s un-American. Let things play out, and if there needs to be action taken, I’m sure it will be taken. But that’s not the city of Hailey’s responsibility.”

She said the staffers at the Chamber of Commerce, and at a store she runs, don’t know how to deal with the vitriol.

This is how Fox, Glenn Beck, the “modern” GOP and the Murdoch worldview are, once again, fucking ruining America. I don’t have some bullshit rosy picture of the past. We’ve been through McCarthyism, southern lynchings, etc. But we don’t have to be this awful going forward. But there’s a buck to be made in creating human suffering. And right wingers are the folks to do it.

Thanks for the tune! I looked up La Lupe to find out if she’s buried at Woodlawn, where Celia Cruz is, but found out she’s at St. Raymond’s, where one of her neighbors is Hector Lavoe. Please leave Hector some flowers too.